Updating a story first posted here yesterday (Aug. 3), artists such as Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, R.E.M., the Dixie Chicks and the Dave Matthews Band have teamed up for the Vote for Change tour, which will visit 28 cities in nine presidential election battleground states.
The tour will kick off Oct. 1 with a concerted effort in Pennsylvania, where Springsteen & the E Street Band will play Philadelphia with R.E.M., John Fogerty and Bright Eyes, while Pearl Jam will play Reading, Pa., with Death Cab For Cutie.
State College, Pa. will get the Dave Matthews Band, Jurassic 5 and My Morning Jacket on that date and the Dixie Chicks will team up with James Taylor to play Pittsburgh. John Mellencamp and Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds will perform together in Williamsport, Pa., and Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and Keb’ Mo’ will stir things up in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Other states that will see some or all of the shows are Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri, Minnesota, North Carolina and Florida.
Vote for Change is presented by MoveOn.Org’s political action committee MoveOn PAC and America Coming Together (ACT), an organization advocating change in government.
The full lineup is still coming together but early details are available via MoveOn’s Web site.
“There isn’t going to be any illusion in the audience about why we’re there,” Matthews said on NBC’s “The Today Show” this morning. Adds R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills, “This unprecedented coming together of musicians underscores the depth of the desire for change in our country’s direction, and it feels right to use some of the freedoms granted to us in a democracy to try and effect that change.”
“This is the fourth presidential election which Pearl Jam has engaged in as a band, and we feel it’s the most important one of our lifetime,” Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder says in a statement. “We believe in the power of the first amendment, and have always exercised our right to free speech in every aspect of our lives and music. This year there is no more powerful way for all Americans to exercise that right than by voting.
